It was very clear to me that he was using the impact implements lightly, even though I generally didn’t see him landing the blows. Logic tells me he would have started at zero and then ramped up until I was reacting, which didn’t take long at all. I definitely had a sense that he wasn’t putting much weight into it*, which I suppose I intuited from the speed of the strokes and the fact that his breathing didn’t change.

The leather paddle got the most use – it gave him the reactions that he liked best. The birch was the most… memorable.

[*With one exception, which I may write about.]

Some months ago I pointed out the existence on my blog of both a mystery and a clue to solving it. The mystery is still out there and there have been plenty of clues lately. I don’t want to tell you what the mystery is because it might give away the game completely and that wouldn’t be any fun.

So, do you know what the mystery is? And have you solved it? Let me know in the comments.

The intention for this may not have been for an arty image but it has turned out to be one. This is like a kinky patchwork quilt and that just works. The individual images tiled into one are just like the panels of a quilt.

Thanks guys! The quilt effect is due in part to the fact that the background of all the photos is the sheet on the bed, so it’s literally textile. And one of my (old) hobbies is sewing.

The other day it was finally cool enough for denim leggings (aka sprayed on jeans), which meant I could wear them with the Breton shirt I’d bought on my trip (balanced stripes in navy and white). With a trilby and nice leather sandals, I looked put together and rather presentable. Wolf was wearing flattering new jeans with a T-shirt, and somewhat dressy black shoes.

Wolf wanted to buy some hardware to make me some leather cuffs, so we headed out to a store that carried saddlery and tack, among other things. The place was quite large so we were fairly invisible, but they didn’t have what we needed. We went to another shop, which was boutique sized, and there was no escaping the clerk’s attention.

As Wolf picked out buckles, loops and clips, I wandered around to see what other stock they had: saddles; leather care products; riding boots for people who actually ride; horse medicines. And then this collection of whips and crops in the corner caught my eye. Er, these implements are a little advanced for me yet, but it pleased me to see them there: shopping becomes more entertaining when you have a dirty mind. I snapped one quick pic, hoping that I didn’t give away the game by paying too much attention items that are so easily pervertable.

The experience was reminiscent of a time when I was the retail clerk. I worked at a women’s clothing shop in a mall, and the clientele were mostly in their 30s and 40s. One quiet evening a couple came in. I pegged them as mid-40s. She was wearing a navy top and a matching knee-length navy-and-white striped skirt. I think he was wearing a suit.

While his wife shopped, he entertained himself by looking at the jewelry. Well, tried to. There wasn’t much and it wasn’t great. So he struck up a conversation with me, leading off with a complaint that the jewelry was crap. I couldn’t argue – he was right. I suppose he started to hear himself and thought his tone was inappropriately negative, so he said, “I do have good taste in jewelry though,” and from the bag he was carrying he withdrew a little object to show me. It was a tiny ziplock containing a captive bead ring, so I asked what was pierced. “My wife’s labia,” he said. Er, I kind of walked into that one, didn’t I?

So there we were, many years later: my partner is picking out benign-looking materials while I’m entertaining myself by looking around in a saddlery shop and thinking about being restrained and possibly cropped.

I never thought I’d be like that. I never thought we’d resemble that couple in the slightest. God, I never imagined myself wearing navy.

When I was in university, I took an art class and one project was to make an image using only shapes cut from black and white paper. I found a little black and white nude photo in a fashion magazine illustrating, in a very tenuous way, some health story or other, and reproduced it for the project.

I liked how it turned out so I got it framed and it now hangs in my bedroom. It has become part of the wallpaper, as it were, and I only recently noticed that it matches the theme of this blog rather well, both in subject matter and style.My interest in nudes is not new, it would seem.

One of the things that I like about Sinful Sunday is how differently people take it, and this is a great way of showing off the body without taking off your clothes. Like Zoë, I was taken by the brilliance of this picture, the curves and contours of the model brilliantly contrasted in stark black and white.

Thanks ILB!

After I originally posted this image, I was having a hard time figuring out why it looked a little off to me. I’m sure it’s not an issue of wonky proportions. I eventually realized that the location of the picture in the bedroom means that I never look at it straight on as in this photo — I’m often looking up at it, which creates a foreshortening effect.

Also, I’m not the model for the image, though I think I look similar. I seem to have subconsciously noticed those similarities, snagged on the differences, and then concluded that the picture must be wrong! I think that means I’m feeling content with my body, and that’s a good thing.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ve probably got me pegged as a bookish sort, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But the majority of the books in the house belong to Wolf. He’s got seven Billy bookcases* shoehorned into the second bedroom/office. It’s a working library, and because of the limited space, anything that isn’t directly relevant to his work may be banished to boxes in the basement. So here’s one corner of the little library. It’s so jam-packed with books that, in this corner, you can’t even see the walls that are painted in my favorite shade of deep red.

Swoon-worthy, right?

Ordinarily I let my camera choose ISO and shutter speed, but in the low light, that would have made for a grainy photo. For this photo, I set the ISO as low as I could (200) and used my tripod and remote. All in the name of getting the crispest photo so you can perv the spines. Click for hi-res.

My books are fewer and less photogenic. I tend to read fiction, though interestingly when it comes to sex I prefer non-fiction. Want to peruse my virtual nightstand? Check out my reading list page, where I keep a running annotated list of the books I’ve read on sexuality, relationships, BDSM, etc.

I’ve recently come to realize that most of my personal growth over the last two years or so (including but not limited to my epiphany) has been spurred by the reading I’ve done. The books about sexuality are included on the reading list page, but much of my reading has been about psychology and related topics that pique my interest. Occasionally these topics cross over into the blog, so I’ve recently created a new tag “I learned it from a book” (in reference to the Fawlty Towers bit) to keep track of the books that, although important to my understanding of my sexuality and sexual experiences, won’t appear on the reading list.

Before Wolf’s surgery, the doctors pointed out a few landmarks in the healing process.

The first 24 hours was critical. In effect, they go in with science and technique and swap out parts, and then cross their fingers and solemnly wish that the mysterious essence of ‘life’ will work its magic and, for its own ineffable reasons, simply continue. At least the landmark here was clear: they’d take the breathing tube out as soon as he could do without it, which happened a bit earlier than expected.

The next landmark was expected around 3 weeks, but it was rather vague and neither of us can remember exactly what it was supposed to be. Perhaps an absolute minimum amount of time off work? If you had a very sedentary job, you could conceivably go back to work. I suppose. What Wolf does is sedentary, sure, but it requires clever thinking and his brain wasn’t 100% online again yet. Or maybe 3 weeks was the amount of time he could be certain to feel like shit.

As I recall, we were told that after 6 weeks his sternum would be healed, and maybe it was, but Wolf’s research suggests that 6 weeks is a bare minimum. Regardless, his center is holding together well enough that he’s able to drive again. (He’s now able to get himself to his weekly blood test. Um, hooray? His ability to go on his own to pick up Indian food is a lot more fun.)

He has now cleared 7 weeks, and he’ll probably be able to start doing rehab soon to rebuild the muscles that have atrophied — mostly arms and torso, from what I can tell. The scar down his center is still livid.

Pretty, aren’t they? All together like this, they make me think of candy. But they’re not sugary sweet. I’m told the red ones (iron) taste like blood.

The doctors’ landmarks are averages meant to help you manage your expectations and identify when there may be a problem. There have also been some personal landmarks, which are more objective and in some ways more significant.

2½ weeks – first blowjob
3 weeks – first PIV sex
1 month – first time he could finger-fuck me
6 weeks – first time he could cuddle me in a spooning position
6½ weeks – we had sex three days in a row

He still feels “not himself”, and it’s going to be a while before he does (or at least gets used to the new normal). But sexual excitement is good, and a rush of endorphins is highly distracting and makes everything seem right with the world (or at least the bedroom), if ever so briefly. And his male sexual pride should be preening in light of his renewed ability to thoroughly get me off.

I had had a significant drought during which my libido responded by cooling dramatically and then, thanks to my hormone cycle, had reheated to a smoulder that lasted for two frustrating days. But my frustration got resolved in a deeply satisfying way. Finally! It wasn’t quite a screaming orgasm — I wasn’t so vocally abandoned as that — but I was yelping, in a good way.

The next day, I woke up feeling satisfied and remained so for, oh, about an hour, but I soon started to get wound up again and continued to feel aroused all day. So that was rather distracting. That night, as he worked me to my climax, the sensation on the way up was particularly delicious, and the noises I made were more of the savoring and appreciative sort: throaty moans and groans, developing into contralto “oh god”s and “oh fuck”s, as my legs began to straighten and my toes to point. (It wasn’t “toe-curling”, but close enough: it seems that I point rather than curl. That’s probably the dancer in me.)

On the third day, what was most notable wasn’t the noises and the sensations, but rather the feeling afterward of being utterly spent and wrung out.

It’ll be a while yet before he’s fully recovered, but he’s definitely on the mend.

One thing I like about the UK is the fact that I can easily buy trifle, with fresh fruit and real whipped cream. One of the first ones I bought was consumed as a snack after sex, so the next time we were shopping, I joked about stocking up on post-coital trifle. We bought two. I ate each of them — post-coitally — the next day.

But I find it hard to justify more than one trifle per day, since I’m not burning that many calories beforehand. So I think we’ll keep the fridge stocked, but one post-coital trifle will be the daily maximum regardless of how busy we’ve been.

Moderation in all things, you know.

Give us this day our daily trifle.

(Sinful Sunday is a weekly meme featuring sensual and erotic photography. Click the icon at the top of this post to go to the homepage and check out the other links.)

I was at the late 15th century chapel for the choral music, which was beautiful and gave me goosebumps a number of times (including twice from wrists to knees), but I found my mind wandering — and not just to the architecture.

I recalled sex past and imagined sex future, including something that would be (even more) inappropriate to talk about. I mostly managed to keep my focus, but I still felt a blooming warmth between my thighs more than once.

All the while, these chaps looked on, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t notice anything amiss.

(Sinful Sunday is a weekly meme featuring sensual and erotic photography. Click the icon at the top of this post to go to the homepage and check out the other links.)